Intensive Services Program

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The Intensive Services Program offers both inpatient and day treatment services for children and adolescents. Children and adolescents requiring psychiatric hospitalization are treated on The Child Psychiatric Unit (CPU; ages three to twelve years) and the Adolescent Psychiatric Unit (APU; ages thirteen to eighteen years). Children who do not require 24 hour care, but still need intensive evaluation and treatment, can be treated as day treatment patients, 5 – 7 days a week, by the same treatment team. Each child and family is assigned to a treatment team that consists of a Child Psychiatrist, Advanced Practice Nurse, Child Psychologist, Social Worker, and Trainees. Milieu staff include Psychiatric Nurses, Mental Health Counselors, and Creative Arts Therapists. The multidisciplinary unit teams provide diagnostic assessment services and treatment to acutely troubled children and adolescents who have emotional, behavioral, or combined medical/psychiatric problems, and who benefit from inpatient stabilization assessment, day treatment services, and disposition recommendations.

The Intensive Services Program provides a supportive, structured program, including individual and family therapy, group therapy, milieu-based behavioral approaches, medication management, and recreational therapy. Children and adolescents receive a thorough psychiatric evaluation. Therapeutic approaches are integrative, including developmental, psychopharmacologic, behavioral, psychodynamic, and solution-focused techniques. The unit’s mission is to facilitate crisis resolution and stabilization. Family participation is a required component of the program. An academic component is present, although there is not a licensed academic setting. Classroom teachers are on-site to provide daily, individualized instruction, and transportation is provided for children and adolescents as needed when they are in the day treatment portion of the program.

The program consists of multidisciplinary staff who meet daily to consult on each patient. Significant focus is on identifying and working with services in the community, including school and mental health services that can provide ongoing support and treatment for clients after discharge.